Kappa – Yokai exhibition in JapanThe first yokai Cecile wanted to draw is a Kappa. Since

Kappa – Yokai exhibition in Japan

The first yokai Cecile wanted to draw is a Kappa. Since we visited the beautiful town of Tono, Japan, in summer 2012, we felt inspired by the nature and the folklore of this city in most of our projects, especially for our graphic novel Onibi.

Tono is famous for keeping yokai world alive and you can see kappa figures everywhere. Kappa are water creatures living in rivers. It is said that in north of Honshu, when the winter was too hard, people used to give their youngest child to the kappa. It probably means they abandoned the children in the river because they couldn’t feed everyone.

Like most of the yokai, Kappa are both cute and frightening. They can be friends with children playing at rivers but they can also decide to drown them.Anyway, Kappa have a lovely weakness that makes them very touching : a cup full of water above their head that must not disappear or they suddenly loose all strength and become weak.

At first, Cecile draws idea sketches, remembering Tono mysterious atmosphere and the statues of Kappa we saw there, like this kappa figure watercolor sketch in location Olivier drew. When the idea is found, she gathers documentation : books of Japanese yokai paintings, fish and turtle on pamphlets and books with seaweed references. She draws the pencil, then Olivier makes the inking thanks to a light pad and a black pencil (UniPin 0.3). He humidifies the paper (Canson 300g) with water and fixes it on a wood plate before starting to color (Winsor&Newton watercolor).